Background security updates for peace of mind and hassle-free computing.

Technical specifications

Chromixium is based on a custom Ubuntu 14.04.1 build:

LTS (Long Term Support) Linux Kernel 3.13 (32 & 64 bit)

Chromium Web Browser

Pepperflash Plugin

Openbox window manager

Compton desktop compositor

Plank dock

LXPanel

Nautilus (Files)

Applications are largely GTK+3 to create a consistent and modern look and feel.

Development Status

Chromixium 32 bit has had it’s second stable release and is currently on version 1.5. Users of Chromixium 1.0 32 bit are advised to install service pack 1 to gain many of the benefits of the 1.5 release. The 64 bit version is in active development. There is a release candidate (RC) available for testing right now, and the stable version is due sometime in September 2015.

The base system is the stable Ubuntu Long Term Support release and if Ubuntu (or a derivative) can run on your system, then so should Chromixium.

EFI/Secure Boot is not supported in the i386 release, so please enable legacy boot in your EFI system

Click Start Chromixium to boot the live environment where you try Chromixium before installing

Use the Text (debug) boot in Virtualbox as the splash doesn’t work off the ISO but does after it is installed

The live CD username is chromixium, no password (just in case you get locked out!)

Install Chromixium:

Launch the installer from the icon on the dock

Please accept the terms and conditions as they relate to bundled software eg Flash player

The installer will guide you through the process and partition your hard drive for you. For more information on installing, please see this guide from Lubuntu which is a very similar process but with different branding.

NOTE: due to an upstream bug in ubiquity, if you want to install using an encrypted LVM root partition, then you must disable swap and zram before starting the installer:

sudo swapoff –all

Using Chromixium

Right-click anywhere on the desktop to access the Applications menu and control panel. This provides access to the underlying Ubuntu Linux operating system, locally installed applications and system settings.

Sign in to Chromium for the best experience (requires a Google account)

Click on the magnifying glass icon to open Chrome Apps and the Chrome Web Store

Click on the network icon in the system tray to connect to a WiFi network

Right-click on the battery/power indicator for power/screensaver/brightness options

Right-click on the Penguin icon to access shutdown/sleep/hibernate settings and to change your avatar

Install local applications using the Add, Remove and Update Software application (Synaptic) from the Control Panel or the Ubuntu Apps Directory

Hardware Support

Chromixium ships with the long term supported 3.13 kernel

If you need the additional hardware support provided by newer kernels, just install with:

If your hardware is not detected, go to Control Panel – Software and Drivers – Additional Drivers tab and if any proprietary drivers are available, they will be listed (requires Internet connection)

Language Support

Chromixium is an English (UK) based project. The Live ISO is configured to US American English language. When you launch the installer you can select your native language and keyboard layout. For best results please ensure that you are connected to the Internet and select “Install Updates”. A number of language packs and locales are pre-installed for French, German, Russian and Spanish languages, incorporating a range of locales which should allow for offline installation.

If you choose a language other than English, then only parts of the operating system will be translated – the log in screen, some application launchers, most Gnome applications and most importantly, the Chromium web browser, so you will be able to surf in your native language. As Chromixium includes a number of bespoke scripts, then unfortunately a number of interfaces are not translated eg the Openbox menu.

If your language and locale settings haven’t been detected properly by the installer, or if you want to add additional languages, then you can do this post-install using the Control Panel and the Language Support application. You will need an Internet connection to install additional languages. For dual-language support, you can add a keyboard layout switcher to the system tray by right-clicking and selecting Add/Remove Panel Items and then adding the Keyboard Layout Handler plugin. For more input-method switching you can install ibus or fcitx from the repositories.

As the project matures, it may be possible to translate more aspects of the distribution. I have already had some kind offers to help with translations. If anyone would like to help with translations in the future, please make yourself known on the forum.

Join the Chromixium Community

Disclaimer

Chromixium is distributed with absolutely no warranty in the hope that some people will find it useful. Any software, code, artwork or system configurations created by RichJack and/or under the Chromixium or Theme-ix project are released under the terms of the GNU Public License v3.. Bundled software is distributed under a variety of licenses as described on the credits page. Chromixium is free software and will remain free to download and use forever. It is mostly made of open source components, but no guarantee is made that there may be proprietary components included.

Chromixium is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either
version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Chromixium is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Chromixium.

@Tom… a quick Google suggests that your Acer D150 has a Broadcom chip which uses the b43 firmware. I’m not sure that I can add this into a future release as the firmware itself is owned by Broadcom. If you can get connected via a cable temporarily, please search for b43 in Synaptic and add all 3 packages:

Hi Guilherme. Thanks so much for your feedback. There are quite a few ways you can help:

Testing each release

Using Chromixium every day and reporting bugs/inconsistencies as you find them

In the future, we are likely to need a support forum. You can offer to moderate or just provide a friendly welcome to newcomers. Once you get to know the ins and outs of the OS, you can provide support

Once of the primary benefits (to me) of Chrome OS is it’s impressive start-up time.
Is this benefit lost by going to a standard linux base?
Obviously startup time varies depending on hardware & install configuration, but can you give any indications of start-up time? – say relative to Chromium OS on same hardware?

I can try and do a comparison tomorrow, bearing in mind that I can only run ChromiumOS from USB. It probably won’t be quite as fast at startup against a dedicated Chromebook which has been built with one OS in mind, but startup times in Linux and Ubuntu have come down dramatically in recent years. However, one of the primary benefits to me of the standard Linux base, is the ability to use the computer off-line (ok you can do this to some extent in Chrome OS), install traditional applications and install on a range of hardware.

Boot from USB from pressing enter on Boot menu to log in screen = 18.71 secs
Log in to desktop = 5.23 secs

When I install to a 5 year old 160GB SATA hard drive, boot times slow to 30 seconds which just shows you how fast flash memory is.

I have seen a YouTube clip of a Google Dev showing off a boot time of 5 secs (but that was running Chromium OS). I believe most Chromebooks are booting in 8-10 seconds, helped by Intel fast-boot technology and flash storage.

As long as there is enough memory (512mb-1gb) should be okay. I’m assuming your netbook has an Intel atom processor? They can be a little slow, but should work okay. Might struggle with HD video playback but general browsing should be fine. Let us know how you get on.

Yes an old Atom processor, rated at 1.33GHz I think. I have been looking for.that illusive “perfect” ditto for it to have looks.that don’t look like it was made 15 years ago, had a good UI and didn’t run too sluggish. Hope this is it. Will try probably.this weekend.

Just a quick question, why chromium browser instead of chrome browser? is it technically or propietary software? etc…just wondering.. by the way..already tried and it does look good and works good too…good job…

hi there I just install Chromixium 0.7 alpha and everything was neat, till I reboot as normal user. then Chromium-browser doesn’t start… Launched from terminal it shows as it cannot start writing in his profile files that are located in /.config any ideea ??? Now I’m using firefox but the idea was to use google products.
Thanks in advance

This OS looks amazing. I can’t wait to test it into a virtual machine.

I’ve been always working with Windows, but I’m already done with it and didn’t found a Linux dist that I liked like this one. I’m working on Windows 8.1 right now and I would like to now more info about this OS.

Can I use many of my usual programs on it, like Office (not OpenOffice, thats the only one thing that Microsoft made pretty well…)?

Also, I use my computer for programming (usually Java) and playing computer games (usually Blizzard games. I don’t have too much time to play my Steam games or Origin games :c work work and work…). Can I install all of this things without compatibility problems or should I have to use a Windows emulator?

Hello there. Yes you can install many windows programs in Chromixium using the WINE emulator. Probably the easiest way to install Office and other windows applications is using a helpful tool called PlayOnLinux which just streamlines the WINE experience: http://www.sysads.co.uk/2014/02/install-ms-office-2010-linux-mintubuntu-playonlinux/
Having said that, you can use office online from the browser…
I have a YouTube clip that shows how to install Steam: https://youtu.be/G5vIzzwMtxQ
To get a windows experience in Linux takes a bit of doing, but most things are possible although I don’t know about Blizzard games.
If you want any help, please visit the forums where I will be glad to assist you as best I can: http://chromixium.freeforums.org

Now, you’ve created Openbox Chromebook lookalike with one Plank and one Lxpanel. I checked it through. It is quite nice. Systemback had done a good job in making the iso, but maybe you should clean the /opt (nothing much there, though) and the /home/user (47.6 MB) folder. Can Systemback make a user-name-less/user-password-less iso?

I’m not going to use 32 bit, so I’d have to make a 64 bit Chromebook lookalike from Lubuntu or Xubuntu, as per your instructions.

Hi, yes of course I remember those posts, that’s what started me on the path to Chromixium 🙂 In the end the xfce panel didn’t scale well when switching resolutions, so I went with lxpanel and then found Openbox more configurable.

You have to hack Casper to get a password-less iso and to be honest, I didn’t see the need. This way the live session is much like a real session and users can get used to logging in and using a password for sudo access.

The home directory contains important config files for the live session user so needs to stay but I do run a script to get rid of unnecessary temp files and logs before building the iso. I will check to see if anything more could be removed though in future.

Thanks. Had a look. But, I find it is still easy to use remastersys, even if it is not developed anymore by the original creator. Also, downloaded Lubuntu 15.04 to play with your ideas. Only, I am not a fan of Chrome web browser, but I’d still try. Anyway, this is your idea, so you create the 64 bit Chromixium for the general public. Good luck!

First of all, this is fantastic! We’re a school slowly phasing in 1:1 Chromebooks, and this is Chromebook like enough I could install it on a bunch of old machines that no one will use with Windows on them any more, because they seem so much slower than a Chromebook to use. But on a 1.4ghz Centrino system, this is really snappy. It takes a bit longer to boot than a Chromebook, but nothing compared to Windows XP. And you can do some things with it you can’t do with a Chromebook, like run Java (of course, Google will be pulling support for Java out of Chrome soon, not sure when that would affect Chromium).

Is there any way to modify this so you log in with a Google apps account, as you do on a Chromebook? Failing that, could the initial login be automatic, then have the first screen in Chromium be the Google login?

Hi Robert, unfortunately you can’t log into Chromixium with your Google account, but you can do your second best option. Have a look at this thread on the forum as we’ve been discussing this very thing. Join in the discussion and I’m sure we can get your set up just the way you want it:http://chromixium.freeforums.org/autologin-guest-session-t87.html

You would be able to set the chromium home page as the sign in page if you want… Hope to see you over at the forums 🙂

Ok I been using this distro a few weeks now .love it on a 64 bit machine .would love a 64 bit version will hang in there .
I do have one problem if I use my nvidia nvs 290 …the fonts look really small so I am using standard xorg version …can you look at this please .
Thankyou .

I have a HP2133 netbook .. can i install this os? btw i got the via 1,2ghz 2gb ram 120gb via graphics abd broadcom wifi.. i already tried so many distro and i cant install any of them.. ill try to download this and use unetboot in a usb live.. ill get ack later..

already installed and running without any problem on installation… used universal usb installer in making live usb install. got problem in wireless wife.. my wifi is broadcom.. ill try the one you suggest in the acer guy up in the reply.. ill get back again later.. and also when i right click and go to application, it takes about 30 sec to open.. laggy.. thanks waiting for your reply..

I have read elsewhere that the installation problems can be avoided by disabling ‘secure boot.’
Now I understand your earlier comment to mean that the 64 bit Chromixium supports (in early stages) UEFI while the 32 bit version does not.

hi, I’m trying to install version 1.0, but in dual boot, do all the partitioning procedures, but at the finish, the installer skips the creation of user login and will direct the configuration language and keyboard and does not install anything when you finish .when I give free boot CD does not shut down or restart the pc

It sounds like the partitions weren’t created properly. If the installer can’t see them, it tends to crash. Are you dual booting with windows? From the live cd can you open a terminal and type this command in please:

Good work – quite a revolution in design ideas.
A great OS installed to a 4Gb USB flashdrive with Unetbootin incl 2.6Gb persistence.
Added all Gstreamers & VLC so multimedia works.
At last I can carry a Chromebook in my pocket.
I look forward to the v1.1 upgrade service pack.

Good Job on this release. Came at a perfect time with my windows 8 failing to boot properly. I wouldn’t read the HDD unless i disabled Secure boot and Turned on CMS in the bios, but even then it was sluggish.I have an ACER PC which i use just for watching movies, Youtube, Netflix, etc. So this OS works perfect. The only thing i find is that In HD it sometimes is slightly choppy. I have installed Google Chrome browser and disabled the FlashPlugin, but it still remains slightly choppy. Any ideas as what i could do to resolve this. Thanks for an awesome release and all your time.

Choppy video is a bit of a problem with the Ubuntu 14.04 base system. An updated graphics driver might help, depending on whether it’s Intel, Nvidia or Radeon graphics. To start, have a look in control panel, software and drivers, additional drivers tab and see if anything is offered. I am hoping to release a 1.1 service pack soon which might help with some cards…

Hi, first of all thank you so much for this. I like it so much im implementing it on all our school’s teacher and child computers. I would just like to know how to change the login screen background? the usual ubuntu methods dont seem to work. this is my first play with linux so be gentle! Once again thanks for the great work!

Hi Dale, thanks for trying Chromixium and I’m glad you like it. The login wallpaper is hardcoded into a configuration file, but it is fairly trivial to change it. Right-click on the Files icon on the dock and choose ‘open a new root window’. Enter your password and then when Files opens, click on computer, then the etc directory and finally lightdm directory. In there is a file named lightdm-gtk-greeter-chromixium.conf. Double click the file to open it and you’ll see a line starting background=. Just put the full path to your wallpaper in place of the original one. Save and close the file.

Hi, did you use the automatic install method or did you create your own partitions? Did you have /dev/sda2 open in a files window?
In any case I’m just putting the finishing touches to an updated iso that uses the Ubuntu installer instead of system back.

There seems to be occasional glitches with virtualbox, though I confess I have never had a problem using the automated install. However, are you willing to wait a few days for an updated ISO? I think it will solve your problems…

I currently run Ubuntu 14.04 on my desktop and my wife recently got a chromebook, I stumbled upon Chromixuim and instantly fell in love. I snagged an old HP Pavilion dv2500 notebook (2007-08ish) with Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T5250 1.5Ghz processors. This machine seems to meet all of the minimum requirements for Chromixium, except I’m having a hell of a time finding out if it is PAE enabled. any thoughts?

Hi Paul, any processor later than a Pentium Pro will be PAE enabled. Basically anything produced by Intel after 1995! SO your Core2Duo will be fine. See here for more information: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE. You should be good to go 🙂

I have so far used more than 20 linux variations. I am also comfortable with installing os on usb sticks with unetbootin. But the tough problem which haunts is: I have a strong urge to use the USB stick without going into bios of a laptop. Whenever a usbstick is removed from the usb drive, for the next boot, it is becoming necessary to change the bios. Bios in most computers have a default “boot from CD/DVD”. Can you add some code in the installer itself, to facilitate auto booting with USB stick after its insertion into the dirve, without going into bios? (There are some softwares like boot manager which require to be burnt on a CD and kept in the drive. That boot manager contains an option to boot from usb. This is not a real solution for the problem I am pointing). Till laptop and PC makers change the default bios to boot from USB, and for the older PCs and USBs, this CHANGING THE BIOS will be a problem.

Sorry but it’s not going to be possible to implement this. Even if I knew how to, the last thing that any software supplier should do is alter a system BIOS and I would rightly be rounded on by the community for doing so.
Also recent computers are likely to have an EFI boot rather than BIOS, the sheer range if motherboards that would need supporting would be incredible.
Most, not all, computers do have an option to set USB as the first in there boot order, certainly many HP machines will allow this. Also by pressing a key when booting eg F9 or F12 will bring up the boot menu on most PCs which allows you to select USB boot without actually entering the BIOS. What make and model PC have you got and have you looked for such a boot option?

Hi there, I have been running quite a few Linux distros over the last five years in several laptops and I always end up in Ubuntu just because it does make the the job and I don’t need to squeeze my mind to make things working properly. I have an old but somewhat refurbished iMac 7,1 core 2 duo 4gb ram and 120 ssd in which I run Ubuntu 14.04 LTS I have tried to install different desktops environments like lxde, enlightemwnr , xfce, etc but none of them represented a real save then I remove and back to unity. I had try to make fresh installs of derivatives such as elementary, bodhi I succeeded into installing but not into boot them. Now I woild be pleased to try Chromixium 64 bits on it and wonder if you guys have any experience with installing in a old Intel iMac. I like the concept and the desktop itself as well as the design. pls kindly let me know and you’ll get me there!cheers

The installation procedure for Chromixium on an iMac will be the same as Ubuntu. Have a look here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages.
The Chromixium build is actually identical to Lubuntu 14.04.1 so there shouldn’t be any problems as your say you already have Ubuntu 14.04 installed.

Sorry about the late reply. You might need a Broadcom driver enabling on your iMac, You will need to connect directly to your router with an Ethernet cable and then go into Control Panel – Software & Drivers – Additional Drivers tab and install from there 🙂

tks mate.that’s good enough. forgot to thank you for such nice job you are doing in that short lap of time, this is impressive. I’m currently testing the 32bits 1.5 version and looks less responsive than the 64 bits rc in vbox…any idea what’s the reason?perhaps the hardware… an old vaio core 2 duo with 2 GB ram…who knows…I also found very easy to install regular stuff such as vlc,Skype,dropbox and shot well but not that easy to integrate them in the main obmenu like other lxde distros…don’t get it wrong you made a really impressive job but just wanna tweak and customize it somewhat

Hi, glad you like the concept. Sadly at the moment there isn’t a script to install the Chromixium desktop on top of Ubuntu. I have started a PPA, so it might be possible on the future but there’s no timescale on it.

Yes of course. There are a number of Chrome apps specifically designed for such, but you can also install offline apps and Java as suits your needs.
Which development platforms or apps do you regularly use?

Does it install and run Chrome Apps? …. I’ve scanned through this page and all the comments but I can’t seem to find anything that suggests that it can.

As far as Benefits, I can see that this OS is a good work around for that difficulty with flash support on Linux, which is necessary for Netflix playback.
Hulu seems to keep it’s content hostage by requiring Hulu Plus if you want access on Mobile devices or Linux.

The real win for Linux regardless of which distribution, would be conquering the hold that Microsoft has kept on DRM.

While MS still extracts a tremendous amount of money from business computer systems, it wasn’t until computers became Media devices that they became ubiquitous in the consumer market with all the additional billions that came with it.

I’m not a supporter of Patent and Copyright laws as they exist today, and of course DRM dovetails quite nicely into this mix as well

I think it’s important to remember that what we live with today is the result of of what happened in the past.

If I remember correctly computer programs were originally excluded from copyright law as the content was considered based on mathematical calculations and therefore considered “facts” which could not be given protection under copyright.

Many aspects of patent and copyright laws have been challenged and changed over the years and from my perspective only to benefit already wealthy corporations.
Microsoft had plenty of legal help in it’s early days suing competitors out of existence and setting the playing field to it’s advantage.

Hi Joe, thanks for you thoughtful post. Chromixium does indeed support Chrome apps. If you wanted to use NetFlix, you need to upgrade to the Chrome browser, but we now have a built in tool that automates this called google browser choice. I completely agree that if DRM didn’t exist, using Linux would be a whole lot easier. Unfortunately it isn’t ever going to go away as it’s been written into the HTML5 spec. The best we can do is to try to support it where we can!

Hey , i am currently using a dell inspiron running on windows 8.But my laptop wont connect to wifi so I am thinking of shifting to chromixium.Will my laptop run smooth on cromixium os..Anything that I need to now before installing.

Should be fine, but if your laptop has a Broadcom wifi card, you’ll just need to connect to your router via ethernet as a one-off until after you’ve installed Chromixium. Tick install additional software at install time and the driver will be pulled down off the internet. If it’s Intel wifi, then no problem.

Hi Rich, I’ve been using Chromixium since a couple of months in both of my netbooks (and looking forward to be using the Cub linux soon 😉 and it’s been great. Thanks to you and all the team! The only thing I’m missing is a way to extend the file manager’s index, being able to search through the content of my files, since I’m writting a dissertation and that would be very helpful. Is there any workaround? I would be great for me to search through all contents from the bunch of pdf articles I have (and not only their filenames). Thanks